The International Application of the Second Computer Inquiry

Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 5 Issue 1 1984 The International Application of the Second Computer Inquiry Robert M. Frieden Dow, Lohnes and Albertson Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil Part of the Communications Law Commons, Computer Law Commons, Internet Law Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert M. Frieden, The International Application of the Second Computer Inquiry, 5 MICH. J. INT'L L. 189 (1984). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol5/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The International Application of the Second Computer Inquiry Robert M. Frieden* INTRODUCTION Data processing and telecommunications technologies and services are rapidly merging into what is called "compunications," I or "teleinformat- 2 ics." The merger of two previously discrete technologies has created a domestic regulatory dilemma for the Federal Communications Commis- sion (FCC).asitstruggles to devise a scheme to regulate communications common carriagewhile leaving data processing subject only to market- place competition. 3 International confusion also has resulted because these new services defy. functional classification, and no universal definitions and standards have been established to coordinate the manner in which they wilt be provided among nations. Notwithstanding the problem of classification, the FCC has sought to define these services loosely in terms of existing regulated telecommunications or unregulated data processing services. The FCC's attempt to establish a framework for existing technology merely assumes that these hybrid services constitute a simple extension of what is currently available. At some point, however, technological innova- tion renders a telecommunications service so much like an information processing service that the established semantic dichotomy breaks down. While it would be imprudent to burden vendors of data processing services with pervasive common carrier regulation, some mechanism is necessary to safeguard the economic well-being of common carriers and the viability of their essential services that will now be subject to greater competition. To varying degrees, nations acknowledge this problem and allow commer- cial, non-communications enterprises to provide such services under a * Robert M. Frieden, Esq. is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A. 1977) and the University of Virginia (J.D. 1980). He is currently associated with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Dow, Lohnes and Albertson, having worked previously in the International Facilities Division of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Common Carrier Bureau. 190 REGULATION OF TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS modified type of government oversight. United States and foreign regulatory agencies, 4 however, employ various definitions, standards, and clas- sifications to maintain a sharp dichotomy. Ultimately, the conversion of all telecommunications transmission media into a digital (electronic pulses) format from the present analog (waveform) mode will foster an even greater consolidation of data processing and telecommunications services. Emerging Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) 5 will not distinguish between voice, record, facsimile, data, or information transmission or manipulation. Until that time when data processing and telecommunications merge completely, however, problems in regulation and operation will abound. This article chronicles the FCC's attempt to confront the confluence of telecommunications and data processing technologies by fashioning a regulatory scheme designed primarily for the United States. The Commis- sion has chosen to apply this scheme, without significant qualification, internationally. Given the different objectives and structure of United States and foreign communications industries, the FCC's system cannot be transplanted abroad without prior consultation and substantial modifica- tion. After reviewing the international problems created by the Commis- sion's application abroad of its newly developed scheme, this article concludes with recommendations for resolving these conflicts that currently threaten the well-being of carriers, customers, and international comity. THE FCC COMPUTER INQUIRIES: MAPPING THE COMMUNICATIONS/DATA PROCESSING TERRAIN In the United States, the merger of communications and data processing technologies has posed a threat to an existing regulatory system of established jurisdictional limits, geared to defining the accessible markets for certain carriers. 6 In a general sense, communications services have been the subject of regulation while data processing has not. Because communications common carriers are now free to enter data processing markets, 7 it was essential that the FCC establish structural safeguards "designed to prevent common carriers from unfairly burdening their regulated communications services with costs properly attributable to unregulated data processing services. 8 In addition, because the structure of the American communications industry is such that one enterprise may be engaged in both communications service and data processing, the FCC had to define criteria for categorizing particular services rather than regulating by industry; regulation would apply only to communications service, with data processing, even if provided by a communications carrier, generally free from governmental oversight. In so doing, the Commission sought to IMPACT OF REGULATION ON INT'L COMMUNICATIONS 191 freeze technological evolution in time so that it could craft semantic categories that supposedly would define markets in perpetuity. Depending upon its definition as data processing or telecommunications, a service and the enterprises providing it could be subject to two vastly different operat- ing rules and economic safeguards. The FCC's Preliminary Classification of Combined Services In 1966, the FCC began to develop comprehensive criteria to categorize the new combined services. 9 Concentrating on how computerization was then employed, the FCC first left unregulated data processing when used "for operations which include, inter alia, the functions of storing, retrieving, sorting, merging, and calculating data according to programmed instruc- tions." 10 Computer-assisted telecommunicatons, "the transmission of messages between two or more points via communications facilities where the message remains unaltered," I I would, on the other hand, be regulated. Soon realizing that a strict data processing/communications dichotomy would not be feasible in view of technological advances, the Commission acknowledged the need to specify hybrid grey areas. 12 These additional definitions would still allegedly foster "maximum separation" 13 between those services which communications common carriers could provide ex- clusively and those services which any data processing enterprise could offer free of regulation, having first acquired the necessary transmission capacity pursuant to tariff from a regulated carrier. The FCC subsequently found that the three subclassifications of data processing, and two sub- categories of computer-assisted communications it had specified, could not adequately classify the myriad of services that could now be jointly performed by a central computer facility and terminals distributed throughout a complete information processing and transmission network. 14 Despite rising doubt that "[t]he confluence of data processing and communications may be such.., that it is no longer practical or possible, from a regulatory point of view, to classify these activities ... ,,"15 the Commis- sion would not forsake a regulatory regime ostensibly based on functional criteria and bound by the then existing state of technology. In so doing, however, the FCC recognized that technological advances had already rendered an absolute data processing/communications dichotomy impos- sible. Such a dichotomy could perhaps be applied in foreign nations where one carrier merely provided all communications services, but not in the United States, where private enterprises were engaged in both services. The Commission subsequently opted to use broad service categories that established a fundamental line of demarcation rather than considering the specific nature of what was involved in a particular service. Thus, 6 "voice service" ' and "basic non-voice" service 17 could be provided by 192 REGULATION OF TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS communications entities without restriction. "Enhanced non-voice" service, 18 on the other hand, was the term used to describe the new data processing category that combined the active use of computerization for data manipulation with telecommunications. Services falling within this category would be restricted when performed by a communications common carrier. Again the Commission's stated purpose was to minimize the need for it to make ad-hoc service evaluations or for the service provider to package an offering in such a way as to fit within a preferred category. The Commission attempted to establish a regulatory structure that distin- guished between communications

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